The Underground Lady (17 page)

"I like the fact that you are patient."

"You will get around to it when you're ready. I'm enjoying the whiskey and the company."

She smiled. "You're a good liar, but thanks." Her eyes were very beautiful without the glasses, halfway hidden in the wrinkled blackness of the sockets, showing something the hardness of her life had been unable to touch.

I thought it good that God keeps the truth of life from the young, or else they would have no heart to grow old.

She went to a bedside table, returned with a brown manila envelope. "Inside are copies I made of a file my boss kept on Hadley Welch. I found it after your first visit. You may find some of it helpful."

"Do you think he killed her?"

"There is no confession in there, if that's what you are hoping for."

"Why?"

"Why am I giving you the file? Think about it, you'll figure it out."

Her phone rang. It surprised me that she had one. It was beside her bed. The conversation was short. She frowned at the receiver in her hand as if it were a live thing that had died on her. Then she lifted her hand and slammed the receiver down rather violently.

"Bad news?"

She turned to me with a smile. It was a smile of triumphant loathing, so frightening and vicious that it nailed me to the chair, immobilized, breathless.

"You have to go now."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes."

"Thank you for the file."

"Just go."

Opening my car door, I felt that someone was watching, but there was no one in sight. Driving home with the brown envelope beside me on the seat, the night had a full-moon feel to it, ebbing and flowing the blood in my veins. The moon sat low like a bleached skull. Clouds slowly passed across it, fading the glow in and out, eerie, alien, scary, and preterit. I thought that there was something about Pussy Galore that whispered of cotton sheets, lace negligees, some unarticulated hint of passion, motionless beneath the flawless tranquility of her appearance. I admired it, contemplated the clear, unexpressed certainty that exotic carnal excess was there for the asking.

Turning onto the terrace row that led to the cottage, all I could see was the faint light from the doorbell. It was quiet, and I was anxious to read through the contents of the manila envelope. Shutting the engine off, I opened the door, got out, and stood beside the car. In the middle distance, a screech owl made a mournful, tremulous, whinny-like noise as if nature was talking back to the world of people. The air was cold and the Big Dipper still framed the opening in the tree line of the driveway. Loose sand under my feet reminded me that all life depends on a few inches of topsoil and some rain.

Inside the cottage, I thought of building a fire, but decided against it. Instead, I sat in a recliner, rewound the tape in the tiny recorder, and listened to the conversation between Miss Galore and myself. Why she would give me the file still puzzled me. Maybe she and Collinswood were having an affair and it had ended. This was her way of getting back at him. Could be that she was lonely. People need to feel wanted, loved, appreciated. They need to feel the intimate familiarity of another's nearness. A closeness to stroke the ego. However, the phone call suggested some lover who watched me arrive at her apartment and was unhappy with me being there. Had she been humiliated? That would change a person – for better or worse – it either beat them down into pathetic creatures, their spirits killed, or brought out a viciousness they didn't know they harbored.

I opened the manila envelope. Collinswood kept a detailed account of the disappearance of Hadley Welch, but there was nothing about her prior to that event. No mention of the dating, no embarrassing run-in with Peter Pushkin at a restaurant. There were a couple of follow-up articles in the
Meridian Star
newspaper, although nothing of importance was in them, only that the search had been called off with no evidence found of a crash.

Putting the file back in the envelope, I ran the recording of the conversation at the apartment again, listening for what, I didn't know. Was this something Collinswood concocted with his secretary/lover? A lie is most convincingly hidden between two truths. Who was it that called the apartment and so angered her that she asked me to leave?

I thought of having a drink before going to bed, but the trouble with alcohol as a sedative is that it floated you off reality for awhile, but it brought you back by a route that sometimes wasn't pleasant.

The cottage was warm. I cut off the heat, turned the ceiling fan over my bed on slow, letting it push hot, heavy air down and cool air up. A good night's sleep was what I needed.

***

The phone rang incessantly, so irritating that I was glad my magnum was not within reach. My eyes itched, my arms hurt, I smelled my own sweat on the pillow. The clock glowed six a.m. "Yes?"

"Sausage and biscuits in half an hour."

"Who is this? Is this that girl I was with last night?"

"Nature is loathing of all that is feeble, or those who sleep all day. We won't wait."

"Yes, mother."

The phone went dead. I rolled over and laughed.

From my bed, I could see the sunrise through the window, a bruised tangerine in the foggy mist above the trees, seemingly too ovoid. The air in the cottage was very cold. Turning the heat on, I jumped into a hot shower. While the stinging warmth of the water loosened stiff muscles, I thought about a conversation with Rose on dying, telling her that death is the most terrifying thing humans are forced to accept. She scoffed at the idea, saying that it can't be that horrible if it happens to every living thing. She went on to say that she was real surprised when she was born and would probably be surprised when she died. Toweling off, I thought how lucky I was to have a neighbor like Rose.

Shack's truck was parked in the driveway at Rose's house when I arrived. She must have invited him to breakfast also. Sunny opened the door for me, looking radiant, her green, emerald eyes dancing as if hiding some medieval secret. Hebrone and Shack were sipping coffee at the kitchen table, Rose was frying sausage.

Hebrone glanced up. "Well?"

"She gave me a file Collinswood kept on Sunny's mom. Not much in it, except a record of the disappearance."

"Why?"

"Hard to tell. She could be mad at her boss, or it's some altruistic reason."

"Or wanting to get laid." Rose set a platter of sausage in the middle of the table. "Men are scarce around here for women like her, even ones like you."

"She got a call from what I took to be the jealous type while I was there. She asked me to leave. So I don't think she had sex in mind."

Sunny set down at the table. "Would you have slept with her if that had not happened?"

"No, it could have been a setup by whoever caused your mother's death, if that's what happened. I was tape recording the visit."

"Wow! Kinky. Can we hear the playback?"

Rose laughed, set hot biscuits beside the sausage. "Everybody eat up. Deer sausage compliments of Ken and Rose Marie. The biscuits, I made."

Shack set his coffee cup down. "They gonna bury old man Shaw in the morning at ten o'clock. We all need to be there, see who else shows. We could talk to the widow after the service, she may know something."

"Had not thought of that. Good idea."

"Wasn't mine." He pointed to Rose. "The biscuit woman's."

"I want you to wear a coat and tie to the funeral."

"Don't own a tie."

"You can borrow one of mine. You, too, Hebrone. Jay has an extra coat you can wear."

"Why do you have men's ties?"

"Never you mind, Leicester. You want another biscuit?"

"I do."

Sunny put her hand to her mouth and laughed.

After breakfast, Shack and Hebrone followed me back to the cottage. Both of them read the file.

"Not much here," Hebrone said, handing the last page to Shack. "I'd love to know Miss Galore's reason for making this available. Maybe it was a plea for help. There is an inherent loneliness in a whisper from the dark."

Shack nodded. "We need to know who left that note on your kitchen table. That's our danger point."

One of the things I admired about Shack was that he never merely made conversation. When he asked a question he wanted an answer. When you got through talking with him, you usually knew more about the subject than when you started, even if it was your own subject.

"You sure the coyote hanger isn't in town?"

"I can tell you this, Hebrone, if the man was back, you'd know it."

"Okay, but nothing stupid."

"Only if you are there."

"Good."

"Shack, if you don't mind, keep an eye on the girls. Hebrone and I want another shot at VonHorner today."

"Not a problem."

***

The morning fog burned off, leaving a hazy winter sky. It made me feel cold all the way through to the bone. Hebrone and I parked in front of Gerald VonHorner's house. The street was getting all too familiar.

"If the slant-eye answers the door, let me deal with her."

"I thought she was Spanish? Isn't slant-eye politically incorrect?"

"Everyone in America has freedom of speech except white people?"

Laughing, I said, “I guess you could ask Don Imus. He could give you a pretty good idea."

It wasn't the small, ebony-eyed, dowdy woman with hair like a horse's tail that opened the door, it was Gerald VonHorner. He seemed even older than a few days ago. The lanky frame, cold, bleary, blood-shot eyes, and gray hair gave him an aura of unhealthy living, yet he was still ruggedly handsome.

"Name's Leicester. I was here the other day with Hadley Welch's daughter. You refused to talk to us. Now, I would suggest that you do so."

He looked back over his shoulder as if he was afraid someone would overhear what he had to say. "Who is this?" He pointed at Hebrone.

"Hebrone Opshinsky. He works with me."

"Walk around to the dock on the lake. I'll meet you there." He disappeared inside the house.

We headed for the boathouse, familiar with the route. I watched a huge red-tailed hawk drift down on wings so wide they looked unnatural. When this bird of prey folded its wings, feathered down like flaps on an airplane for slowing its flight, and extended razor-sharp talons toward a live oak limb, its beauty affected me as no art or music or book ever had, as no landscape or beautiful woman ever could. For a brief moment I was lost in nature.

"Here he comes," Hebrone said, bringing me back to the present.

VonHorner walked up, carrying a bottle of cognac and three glasses, and it was not yet noon. He motioned to a small wooden table with four Adirondack chairs. He put the bottle on the table, wiped thin lips with the back of his hand. His smile had the expression of a coiled rattlesnake, dangerous to the last hiss. He poured a small amount of the brown liquid into each glass, set the bottle back down. "Hadley Welch. What do you want to know?"

"Did you kill her?"

"Why in the world would you think that I killed her? Hadley Welch took off from her farm in her little airplane and crashed. The wreckage was never found."

Hebrone leaned forward. "The man asked if you killed her?"

He gave back an empty gaze, but in his eyes there was only a distance, a distance as deep as the morning's hazy, winter sky. "No, I did not kill her."

"Someone sent the daughter an anonymous letter saying her mother was murdered. We found out who sent it, but he died before we could talk to him."

"Too bad."

The man was lying to us. His eyes were like sleet. I saw in them the dangerous void he hid so carefully. It was an emptiness his enemies had reason to fear. It was an emptiness about to be filled with the murder of Hadley Welch.

"His name was Avis Shaw. Ever hear of him?"

"No."

"Someone didn't like the fact that Sunny Pfeiffer hired me to look into her mother's disappearance. They sent me a warning to stop by hanging a coyote from my front door and saying they would kill my friends and me. When that didn't work, a note was left on my kitchen table. You wouldn't know anything about this?"

"I would not."

"We found out who hung that poor animal, Mr. VonHorner. If it leads back to you, sir, not even God will be able to help you."

I heard a faint scream, and looked up toward the house. The small woman was running toward the dock in a waddling motion. It would have been funny but for the fact that as she neared us, I could see she had a pistol.

She waved it in my face, squealing, "You no come! You no come!"

I moved to one side, undecided whether to try to take her or pass on by. My indecision made me slow. Not Hebrone. He took the gun from her with a motion I never saw. It seemed to surprise the woman. She stared at the hand that held the gun as if she could not understand why it was gone.